The Dead Ought Sleep Forever
by Adara-chan67
Summary: The Winchesters have some issues to face when Sam disappears during a case. Oneshot songfic, limp!Sam as always, freaked!Dean, and a fair bit of angst for both of them. Rated because I finally got the guts to venture into a LITTLE torture, but not much.


_DISCLAIMER: Yes, I own everything in this story. I own the Winchester boys, and I own the song "Black Parade," and I also own the part later in the story where Sam pulls this really cool but incredibly painful maneuver. I won't describe it, but you'll probably know it when you see it. Yes, I own it all._

…_How long is my nose?_

_No, actually, the Winchesters belong to Kripke, "Black Parade" is by My Chemical Romance, and the awesome painful move came from my favorite author in the whole wide world, Mercedes Lackey. _

**nose shrinks**

_Characters: Dean and Sam Winchester, as well as Evil!John. (Well, sort of.)_

_Setting: Current episode(s)_

_Warnings: Angsty!Dean, Limp!Sam, a little bit of torture (but not too much, so don't worry)_

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The Dead Ought Sleep Forever

**When I was a young boy,**

**My father took me into the city**

**To see a marching band.**

**He said, "Son, when you grow up,**

**Would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned?"**

"_You have to save him, son. Save him…or kill him."_

_The young man stared at his father from his hospital bed, his mind refusing to comprehend all that he'd just been told. The middle-aged, dark-haired man smiled at him, his face oddly kind—and then he was gone._

_In his place was the second son, younger and taller and usually looking so gentle-but not now. Now there was no expression on his face at all, and his eyes were jet black. Suddenly he smirked, and walked slowly to the bedside. His long arms were stretching, hands reaching, fingers closing around his older brother's vulnerable throat…_

Dean Winchester woke with a start.

XXX

Dean sat straight up in bed, chest heaving as he panted like he was trying to shove all the air of the universe into his lungs at once. Swallowing painfully, his dry throat making the action more painful than helpful, his eyes roaming restlessly over the room. Everything was silent and still, but rather than having a comforting effect, the quiet only increased Dean's jumpiness, as if he could see things lurking in the shadows.

As if he could see his brother stepping out of the dark, a nightmare become real, ready to force Dean to make the possibly fatal decision that their father had burdened him with such a short time ago…

"You all right?"

Dean started as Sam's voice floated from the darkness, and was immediately ashamed of the failing of the instincts he'd spent so many years honing.

"I thought you were asleep," he murmured absently, still berating himself.

"I was. I'm not anymore," Sam said matter-of-factly. Dean heard him shifting around, and then the lamp between their beds clicked on. Dean blinked as the light assaulted his eyes, but he didn't say anything. Sam rested his elbows on his knees, folded his arms, blinked owlishly for a minute, and then looked at him again. "You wanna talk about it?"

Dean had only lately begun to understand why that question bugged Sam himself so much on those nights when _he_ was the one who woke up in a cold sweat or screaming wordlessly or calling names, and the oldest Winchester scowled.

"Nothin' to talk about. Turn the light off."

Sam knew better than to ask again, but he was frowning as he reached over and switched the lamp off. The covers rustled again, and Dean assumed his brother was bedding down again. He was, therefore, considerably surprised when Sam got out of bed entirely.

"Hey, where ya goin'?" Dean asked, his voice carefully bland.

Sam set his laptop on the table and started it up, his face bathed in the cold blue light coming off the monitor as it turned on. He didn't look at Dean, speaking instead to the screen.

"I'm looking for jobs."

"'S four in the morning, Sam."

"Yes, it is," Sam agreed, still not glancing at him.

"Why do I suddenly get the feeling you're mad about somethin'?"

"I'm not," Sam said flatly.

"Uh-huh."

"Look, Dean," Sam snapped. "I'm not mad. I just wish you would talk to me, but I know you won't, so I'm not gonna ask you again. But I'm _not mad_."

"Then what's with you getting online at four A.M. and looking for jobs? Which you _hate,_ by the way."

Sam shrugged. "We haven't had anything for a few days, you're bored out of your mind, and I wouldn't have slept much longer anyway."

Well, _that_ much was true, at least.

"You go back to sleep, though," Sam urged, in that overly-gentle, concerned voice that Dean loved and hated so much. Sam seemed to sense his irritation, and lightened his tone. "I don't want to deal with a sleepless brother—you're annoying enough when you're on a good night's sleep."

Dean rolled his eyes as he flopped back down on his pillow. "I don't think you're exactly one to preach on that, Sammy-boy."

Sam chuckled slightly, and the sound of that and his fingers clicking steadily on the computer keys followed Dean back into a restless sleep.

**He said, "Will you defeat them,**

**Your demons, and all the non-believers, the plans that they have made?**

**Because one day, I'll leave you,**

**A phantom to lead you in the summer**

**To join the black parade."**

"Damn it!"

Dean tore his eyes from Looney Toons over at his brother in surprise—Sam never cursed. "What's wrong?"

Sam motioned him over, still looking irritated. "You're not gonna believe it."

Interested in spite of himself, Dean switched off the TV and went to look over his brother's shoulder at the computer screen. Sam was logged into the newspaper database he used for just about all research, and had pulled up a local paper in Freemont, Nebraska.

"Okay…what am I looking at?"

Sam jabbed a finger at a little snippet of an article on the left side of the screen. "A woman in Freemont is apparently stirring things up at the PD down there. She's come in three times in the last week to report that her boyfriend is stalking her. Then, yesterday, she claimed he tried to kill her."

"Uh…okay…so far I'm missing the part where this becomes our problem."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Nice, Dean."

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry for her. I am, but seriously, Sammy, stalker boyfriends? We'd just be asking for trouble—not to mention a few vigilantism charges. It's not our kind of thing."

"Yeah, you would be right about that—if Brooke Fairchild's boyfriend hadn't died five months ago."

"…Oh."

"Yep."

Dean dragged the other chair to Sam's side of the table and turned it around, sitting in it backwards and crossing his arms over the back. "So are you thinking ghost?" he asked, somehow doubting that this was what had annoyed Sam so.

His suspicion was confirmed when Sam shook his head. "No, I don't think so. For one thing, the guy died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Long, drawn-out, painful, but not violent. For another, he doesn't seem to be _attached_ to anything, from what I could dig up on him and this whole case."

Dean nodded agreement. "Zombie, maybe? Another necromancer?"

Sam hesitated, then shook his head again. "Nah. He was cremated."

"Oh. Well, ya coulda mentioned that…" Dean said, casting his mind around for other ideas. After a long moment, he looked sideways at Sam. "You're not serious."

"'Fraid so."

"Damn it!"

XXX

"I hate this," Dean said as they crossed over the county line into Freemont nine hours later.

"I know," Sam said soothingly, his eyes on the road outside his window.

"I'm so damn _tired_ of shapeshifters."

"I know."

"They never bring any good to me at all."

"I know."

"For God's _sake_, Sam!"

"What?"

"Stop saying I know! Put a sentence together or don't say anything at all."

"Okay, first of all, 'I know' _is_ a sentence. It has a pronoun and a verb. Secondly, I know you're mad about this, but I'm not exactly thrilled about it either," Sam snapped. "These jobs don't tend to work out so well for me, either, remember. But you said yourself—we can't just pick and choose who to save based on our own preferences. So let's just…do this job as fast as we can and get the hell _out_ of here, okay?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, fine, whatever."

Sam nodded, and his voice was thick with exaggerated patience when he spoke again. "Now let's just find a motel and grab some dinner, all right? We still have time to talk to the girl tonight if we hurry."

**When I was a young boy,**

**My father took me into the city**

**To see a marching band.**

**He said, "Son, when you grow up,**

**Would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned?"**

"He started showing up a couple of weeks ago," Brooke Fairchild told them, gesturing for them to have a seat. "The first time I thought it was just a coincidence—someone who just looked like him at first glance—so I ignored it. But then a couple of days later, I was walking home from work, and I saw him again."

"Did he try to approach you?" Sam asked her, his voice soft and gentle. (Dean never did understand how he could make it _do_ that.) "Talk to you, maybe?"

She shook her head. "No, nothing like that. He just…watched me. I got inside as fast as I could, so I don't know when he left, but he wasn't there when I left for work the next morning."

"And the third time?"

"I was out with some friends," Brooke said. "We were downtown. It's…not the safest place at night, but we had a car. We figured it was okay." She shook her head. "Anyway, I saw him from our booth, up at the bar, watching me again. And every inch of him was just…Christopher. That's when I went to the cops. But they think I'm crazy." She shrugged. "I don't know, maybe I am. I mean, even if Christopher _was_ alive, he'd never hurt me. He wouldn't have smashed a spider if you paid him five bucks and gave him the shoe."

Sam smiled. "Well, Ms. Fairchild, I'm pretty sure you're not crazy. It's definitely not the only explanation."

Brooke smiled back, though a little weakly. "I hope you're right."

Dean cleared his throat then, and spoke up. "So do you remember anything else?"

Now, was it just him, or was her smile a little less warm when she turned it on him?

"No, I don't…well, actually, there is one thing, but it probably doesn't have to do with anything."

"Tell us," Sam said, somehow making it sound like he was asking out of plain old curiosity, rather than demanding information.

"Well…as I was leaving the precinct yesterday after they told me I'd lost my mind, one of the officers called me over. I guess he felt sorry for me, because he told me that I wasn't the only one with a stalker complaint. A few people went to the police just last month insisting that they saw their dead husbands, boyfriends—whatever—following them. But of course no one believed them, either. Anyway, the officer gave me their address, in case I wanted to talk to them."

"Just the one?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. All the people live in the same place—an apartment building downtown. Same area as the bar I went to with my friends."

"And did you? Ever live there?" Dean asked.

"Uh…yeah. Before I got a good job and was able to pay for a better place. How'd you know?"

Dean glanced at Sam then, and shrugged. "We have our ways." He looked back to discover her frowning. "Uh, can we have that address now, please?"

XXX

"Oh, yes, yes, I know exactly who you're talking about now. Terrible business, that…just awful…"

Sam nodded once again and said patiently, "I know, it _is_ horrible. That's why we really need you to cooperate with us here."

"Oh…well, yes, of course," the building's landlord blustered nervously. "What do you need to know?"

Dean stood back and listened, letting Sam take things from here. He had a strong dislike of this man—he was quite reminiscent of some kind of rodent—and admittedly Dean probably wouldn't have been able to wrench much information from the guy.

"Thank you. I really only have a couple of questions…"

Over the next ten minutes, Sam skillfully extracted every useful detail that could possibly pertain to their case from the landlord while Dean watched, impressed in spite of himself. Not that the landlord _had_ much to offer that was useful. He hadn't ever seen any of the alleged stalkers; he'd never had any disturbances during the night; he had seen no sign of anything dangerous at all anywhere near his building.

But finally, just as even Sam was about to give up, a useful piece of information dropped.

"So would you mind if we went up and talked to the girls?"

"Oh, I'm afraid that's not possible."

"Uh…do you mind if I ask why?"

"Well, only one is here at the moment, and she won't see anyone, or even open her door."

"Why not?"

"Well, after Lana, of course. One of the others."

"What happened to Lana?"

"Well…didn't you know? She died, of course."

**Sometimes I get the feeling **

**She's watching over me.**

**And other time I feel like I should go.**

**And through it all, the rise and fall, the bodies in the streets,**

**When you're gone we want you all to know.**

"Are you serious?" Sam asked, his tone holding an edge of incredulity as he stared at his brother.

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"You want to go hunt the shifter…tonight?"

"Why do you say that like it's so crazy?" Dean asked, a little irritably.

"Uh…because it is?" When Dean rolled his eyes, Sam chose to take it as an invitation to continue, rather than what it actually was—a command to shut up. "Dean, we know next to nothing! We don't know how strong this thing is, we don't know its MO, we don't know what it even wants in the first place—"

"None of which I care about," Dean replied calmly. "All I need to know I know already—how to find it, and how to kill it."

Sam stared at him. "You're serious. You actually want to find and fight this thing with us basically running around in the dark."

"No, what I _want_ is to take care of this before anyone _else_ dies on our watch," Dean snapped, finally losing his temper.

And just like that, they weren't talking about the shifter anymore.

Sam just looked at him for a long time, then sighed reluctantly. "Fine. How do we find it?"

XXX

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Sam muttered mutinously, glaring at Dean as the Impala pulled to a stop in front of Brooke Fairchild's small house.

"Yeah, well, not my fault you had a synaptic breakdown, Sammy."

"Dean, do you even know what that means?"

"Do you seriously think you're gonna geek-talk me into forgetting that we're splitting up?"

"Maybe."

"_Go_, Sam."

Sam rolled his eyes. "And what am I supposed to _tell_ her, huh?"

"That you think it—he—may come back tonight, and you just want to make sure she's safe. C'mon, man, she thinks you're hot, it won't be that hard, and _you_, my friend, are out of excuses. Go on, get. And call me the second anything happens. If it's related to the hunt," he added meaningfully.

"This is ridiculous," Sam muttered one more time, before getting out of the car and slamming the door.

Dean turned his eyes heavenward and muttered a quick prayer that went something like _God, save us from drama queens and pre-law students_ before driving away.

XXX

Now, an hour later, Dean wasn't so sure Sam _was_ just being dramatic.

He'd been parked in front of this crap-shack of an apartment building for an hour now, and the whole area had been as calm and silent as tombs tend _not_ to be. He'd gone in when he'd arrived to make sure the two surviving girls were safe in their apartments and that there hadn't been any disturbances, and then he'd come out and…done exactly what he was doing now.

And if the waiting wasn't irritating enough, there had been…_something_…tugging at his mind that entire time. Something important…something to do with this hunt…and something potentially_ bad_ enough to create this horrible pit in his stomach…

XXX

"You know, I think it's really sweet of you to stay here with me," Brooke said, handing Sam a cup of coffee and setting her own down on the coffee table before sitting down in the chair across from the couch where he sat. "But it's really not necessary."

"Oh…yeah," Sam said awkwardly. "I just…well, it's kind of hard to explain..."

"Then don't try," Brooke said simply. After a short pause, she confessed, "You know, if it was just about anyone else, I'd think…"

"That I was trying to take advantage of you?" Sam asked with a smile.

"Exactly," she said with a grin.

"And what makes you think I won't?"

Brooke shrugged. "You just…you haven't hit on me since I met you. Not once. And I wasn't exactly being…shy…when you and your friend were here earlier." She studied him as he took a drink of his coffee, and asked off-handedly, "Are you gay?"

Sam choked and then started coughing as way too much coffee burned its way down his throat. "_What_? _No!_ And I'm really tired of people _thinking_ so! I'm just not ready to _date_ anyone right now, damnit!"

"…Oh…" Brooke said, looking a little startled by his sudden outburst. "I…I'm sorry. That did sound a little…yeah…didn't it?"

Sam shrugged, still a little disgruntled. "Never mind, forget it."

After a few moments of awkward silence, Brooke asked, "So…bad breakup, then?"

Sam forced back his irritation and told himself that she wasn't _trying_ to pry.

Well, okay, maybe she was, but she couldn't possibly know how the question hurt him…

He was about to reply—with an answer that _would_ be polite, whether she deserved it or not—when the door exploded inward.

XXX

When Dean realized at last what was bothering him, he couldn't get to the landlord fast enough.

"Chuckles, I'm gonna ask you a question right now and if you aren't more honest with me than you've ever been in your life than I'm gonna kill ya dead."

The landlord was still processing when Dean asked the question, but Dean made sure he understood it with the simple maneuver of grabbing him by the collar and pulling him forward to make each word clear.

"I need you to tell me if you know if those girls were ever followed at the exact same time."

XXX

Brooke turned out to be useless in a fight, of course. Because of course it was too much to ask for a person who could actually defend _themselves_ a little bit. _Where_ were all the Xenas—and Sarahs, for that matter—of the world? You know, the people who don't just stand there and panic when their lives were in danger?!

Sometimes Sam thought _that_ was what made hunting so annoying—the victims.

Then a fist clipped him in the chin hard enough to snap his head straight back, and Sam revised his idea.

It was the demons that made hunting so annoying—definitely the demons.

_Then_ the victims.

And _Dean!_ Oh, yeah, sure, "call me if anything happens." Because it was really likely that Sam would be able to get to his phone fast enough if shapeshifters attacked!

_Idiot…_

And why the hell were there _three_ of them?! There was only supposed to be one!

That was a hole other irritation entirely, Sam thought, slamming a foot into one shifter's gut hard enough to send it stumbling back a few feet, then spinning to deliver a sucker-punch to another. Why couldn't evil just fight _fair_ once in a while?!

Ridiculous thought, but one worth wishing for…

And then something heavy slammed into the back of his head, and Sam stopped wondering these things.

He fell.

**We'll carry on.**

**We'll carry on.**

**And though you're dead and gone, believe me.**

**Your memory will carry on.**

**We'll carry on.**

**And in my heart, I can't contain it.**

**The anthem won't explain it.**

"Damn it, damn it, damn it…" Dean muttered, running up the house's porch steps. In his panic, he simply went through the door, rather than taking the time to open it. "Brooke? Sammy?" he called, and when he got no answer he proceeded to high-tail it into the living room.

Oddly enough, his panic faded a little when he saw Brooke stretched out on the floor in the midst of the wreckage that used to be the living room furniture. It didn't depart entirely, but it suppressed itself enough that he was able to think coherently.

Brooke was stirring by the time he reached her, and he helped her sit up. She grimaced and put a hand to the back of her head. "Ow…"

"Brooke, where's my brother? Where's Sam?" Dean demanded, his voice rough but his hands gentle as he checked the lump on her head.

"I…I don't know. They…one of them smashed a lamp over his head and…another knocked me out. I don't _know_!" she practically shouted. "I…I guess they took him…" her voice had dropped to a whisper, and she was crying now. "But…I don't understand. Chris…he wasn't with them…why wasn't he there? I mean…if he wasn't behind this, then why did those guys break in in the first place? I didn't know any of them…"

Finally fed up with the babbling, Dean cut her off. "Okay, you know what? You need to get to a hospital, and I need to find my brother," he said, lifting her easily to her feet. "C'mon, I'll drive you."

"But…I…"

"Not lookin' for arguments, cupcake, just for general forward movement. Hurry _up¸_ for God's sake, I don't have time for coddling. Sam's probably a lot worse off than you right now, anyway…"

XXX

Half an hour later, Dean was back at the apartment building, once again trying fruitlessly to wrench information from the greasy landlord who never seemed to leave. It took him several long, desperate minutes to talk himself past the slimeball and up to the second floor, to the apartment where the two surviving women who had helped to bring the Winchesters here lived.

By that time Dean was pretty much fed up with the entire world in general, and so thought it perfectly reasonable to scream in the face of the person who answered the first door he knocked on, "ARE YOU LINDA CARTER?"

The small, middle-aged woman didn't bat an eye. "Two doors down, hon."

Dean was off and running before she finished closing the door in his face.

Linda Carter opened the door only enough for him to see one brown eye, and Dean tried not to scream in frustration. He didn't have _time_ for skittishness! Couldn't people see that everything had gone so horribly _wrong_?

"Listen, I'm not here to hurt you," he said, trying to pitch his voice to soothe the way Sam did. "I want to help. No, really, I do," he said when the eye looked doubtful. "I know about the guy who's stalking you—I know all about him," he added, placing careful emphasis on "all."

She was silent for another agonizing moment before murmuring, "What do you want?"

"Just some answers. You don't even have to open the door the rest of the way."

Dean tried not to look like he was too impatient—tried not to show how ready he was to start yelling and possibly hurting—but he wasn't sure how well he succeeded when Linda fell silent again.

He sighed in audible relief when Linda said, "O-okay."

XXX

Scarce minutes later, Dean was driving back down the road, fuming at the incompetence of humanity. Linda had told him very little, speaking basically in two- or three-word answers to his questions. Nothing she'd said gave him a single clue to help him find Sam.

After that dead end he'd tried to get something from the other victim, but she wasn't even answering her door, though he'd certainly pounded hard enough to annoy half the floor. Once that had started getting old about ten seconds later, he ran full-speed down the stairs and threatened a little more info from the slimy landlord. Once he was sure no one had come into the building in the past couple hours, he'd jumped back in the car and sped off—only to discover that he had no idea where to go.

He had no idea where to look for Sam next.

He was on his way back to the motel before he really processed where he was going, but that really wasn't too surprising. For over twenty years, motel rooms had been much more than just that to Winchesters. They were command control, the place where they went to regroup, and it was there that Dean went now—to plan the rescue of his brother.

_C'mon, Dean, get with it!_ He chided himself, an edge of panic even in his mind-voice. _You've had worse problems than this…_

And he had, truthfully. He and Sam had been through much worse than this—so why was he so frightened now? Why couldn't he just get a _grip_?

Dean was still wondering this when he stepped into the motel room—and stumbled over the answer.

**And we will send you reeling from decimated dreams.**

**Your misery and hate will kill us all.**

**So paint it black and take it back.**

**Let's shout it loud and clear,**

**Defiant to the end.**

**We hear the call**

**To carry on.**

Sam groaned faintly as he was roused to consciousness by a vicious kick to the side, followed by a harsh command of, "Wake up, hunter, I didn't hit you _that_ hard."

Sam followed the words reluctantly, because even pain was better than swimming in the endless black. He cracked his eyes open and groaned again as the half-light assaulted the pain in his head and seemed to increase it a hundredfold. "Beg…to…differ," he gasped past the pain in his chest—cracked ribs? Maybe. He hoped so. He could deal with cracked ribs.

There was an irritating and grating laugh somewhere in the general direction of _up_, and a different voice spoke. "Well, you're not really in a position to argue, are ya, now?"

If there was one thing Sam hated, it was someone trying to exert power over him, and a new rush of annoyance assisted in pushing back his pain—if only momentarily—and helped his eyes open all the way.

There was no one leaning over him as he'd expected. No one ready to beat him awake if necessary. No one above, and so he would have to turn his head.

_Ack…_

But he couldn't just lie here until Judgment Day, wondering who held him captive, and so he forced his head, his eyes, to move off to the left where he'd last heard a voice, hoping against hope that one of them would at least be crouched so he could see a face.

Nope. Just a boot.

Well, that was it. He flatly refused to move anymore, whether or not that boot stood there in his line of vision for always and eternity.

"Hey, Cain, I think he's awake."

That was a new voice, a woman's voice, and it sounded familiar…

Come to think of it, all _three_ of them sounded familiar…

But the thought floated away, half-formed, when the one who seemed to be the leader spoke again, voice quiet and deep and rumbling.

"Oh, good, I was getting a little bored…" There was a grin in the voice now. "Sam Winchester, right?"

Sam rolled his eyes, though the action cost him dearly. "Yeah, 'cause you'd really be holding me here if you didn't know that already."

Another kick was all he got for his trouble, but that was okay because he did feel slightly stronger now. Not strong enough to track down the owner of that voice, but that wasn't the point anyway.

"Don't be cute, you might make me ruin my own fun."

"Wouldn't want that…" Sam muttered.

He didn't get kicked this time—apparently Cain was trying to hold himself in check. Instead, he just chuckled. "You know, I really wish I'd known you and your brother were coming. It's very rude to drop in on a guy unannounced. Ah, well, it all turned out the way I wanted it to, anyway—and now I have a new toy."

"That is sick…" Sam murmured, and this time a hand came flying down to crack across his jaw from the other side, so it wasn't Cain who lost his temper this time.

"Calm down, Abel," Cain said soothingly. "We'll do something about his mouth in a minute," he added, shifting until his foot was next to Sam's right hand.

But Sam was still caught up with the names, and once they registered he simply couldn't help himself—he began to laugh. He laughed and laughed until the pain in his chest flared and set his insides on fire, and still he couldn't stop…

Then the boot crashed down onto his hand, and the first finger broke.

After that he stopped laughing.

XXX

It was the phone that did it. Dean began kicking himself the moment he set eyes on it, berating himself for missing so obvious a solution. Seriously, what kind of hunter _was_ he? He was being seriously ridiculous right now, and if he didn't pull himself together fast, there was no telling what could happen to Sam.

It took him about five minutes on the phone playing the role of the worried dad (rather than the terrified brother) to get Sam's GPS activated. He'd been silently praying that Sam's phone hadn't been taken away, and nearly cried with relief when the little red dot marking Sam's location lit up on the map he'd pulled up on Sam's computer.

Well, until he found out _exactly_ where Sam was. Then he just got annoyed.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me…"

XXX

Sam curled in on himself and shook silently, refusing to cry out as long as the shifters were there. He struggled to stay conscious. He'd already blacked out twice from the pain, but he refused to do so again, no matter what a relief it would have been—it gave them too much pleasure.

He also refused to look at his hand. He didn't want to see what they'd done to it when they'd broken his fingers. He wondered, vaguely, what they were going to do next, even while most of his mind sifted through escape plans.

Then there was a hiss of metal that Sam recognized as a dagger being drawn, and the next thing Sam knew the blade was at his throat. He chuckled, feeling a gash open where his throat rose. "Silver? Seriously?"

"Hey, it's only dangerous if it cuts ya," Cain said, kneeling down.

Then Sam caught his first glimpse of the face the shifter was using, and he suddenly felt all inclination to joke leave him, replaced by only one clear thought.

He had to get away from here before Dean came for him.

That Dean _would_ come for him was beyond doubt, but this time, it couldn't be allowed. Dean shouldn't have to be faced with this.

As for Sam himself, he didn't have much room for anything but a sharp, all-encompassing sorry, and a determination to right this wrong before it could affect his brother and make him bleed inside once more.

It was that determination that gave him the courage to put his most desperate—and most certain—plan into action. Even the knowledge of how stupid it was, and how painful it could be, was blocked almost completely by that determination—that protective instinct that he always felt toward his family, but that he rarely got any chance to make use of.

Cain grunted in surprise—but not in pain—when Sam, without warning, suddenly curled his legs up into his chest and pushed out with all his strength. He stumbled back, and just like that Sam was on his feet. He made a grab at the knife with his uninjured hand, but Cain leapt out of the way with a chuckle.

"Well, I have to say, I wasn't expecting that."

He didn't attack, and Sam wondered why until someone grabbed him from behind, taking hold of his right hand and clapping it to his side. Sam gasped as the action reawakened the fire in his whole arm, but he didn't let it stop him from whirling and hooking an arm around the shifter's neck. The angle probably broke or at least sprained the rest of his hand, but Sam felt nothing. Then his hand dropped to his side, nearly numb now, and he was able to safely release his opponent and turn to face him.

He wondered why the other shifters weren't attacking him, but there was no time to look. Abel was already coming at him again, and Sam had only one hand to work with.

And yet, somehow, now that the time had come for action, Sam was suddenly unafraid. Unafraid of the pain, the risk, everything except the idea of Dean coming here.

He was more scared of that than he was of anything else.

XXX

It was raining by the time Dean finished arming up and headed out of the motel room. In fact, rain was a rather mild term for it—the water fell from the sky in periodic sheets that reduced visibility to pretty much nil.

Dean cursed when he stepped out into it, and made quite a spectacle of himself trying to beat up the sky. But honestly, _why_ was the whole universe against him? Why did this have to happen _now_? And most importantly, how was a guy supposed to pull of an astounding daredevil rescue when he couldn't drive faster than forty miles an hour?!

Seriously…

XXX

Five minutes later, Sam was standing in the middle of the room with Abel and the girl lying on the ground at his feet, and he had no idea how he'd done it. It had just…_happened_, and now that it was over, he was exhausted. His hand was throbbing dully, but not afire anymore, and he wasn't sure how good or bad that was.

Cain looked at him calmly, as if Sam taking out two of his buddies was nothing of real importance, as if it were only a natural thing to occur. In his hand he held the dagger, his finger running idly up and down the flat of the blade.

Sam stood there, gasping and listing to the side a little, waiting to see what would happen next because there was no other choice.

"Did you kill them?"

Sam started—he hadn't expected Cain to speak, especially in such a flat, calm tone. "Uh…I don't know…" _And I'm certainly not going to take my eyes off you long enough to check…_

Cain nodded thoughtfully, twirling the knife. "Tell me, Sammy, why did you do that?"

"Don't call me Sammy."

"I mean, you have to know I'm not just going to let you go. Right?"

Sam shrugged his left shoulder. "Evens the odds." Only it really, _really_ didn't, and apparently some of Dean's cockiness was rubbing off on him.

Cain smiled. "Only if I discard the knife. Do you expect that?"

"I don't expect anything of things like you."

"Oh…harsh words, harsh words. And I imagine you won't be as accommodating for torture as you were five minutes ago." Then, suddenly, he switched the knife to his left hand. "So I guess that leaves me only one option. Unfortunate, but not unexpected." He grinned, and Sam barely had time to brace himself before the shapeshifter was on him.

Sam felt a shock jolt his entire body as Cain clammed into him, and he grunted. _Damn_, but this thing was strong! Sam broke out of the hold with quite a lot of effort, and leapt back, stumbling as he landed, his mind whirling. After only a couple of seconds locked in Cain's hold, the youngest Winchester knew there was no way he could hope to win this fight. And if he hadn't killed the other two shapeshifters—which, admittedly, was pretty near impossible without a weapon—and they woke up…

Cain whirled the knife as he prepared to attack again, and Sam's eye was caught by the glint of the blade. As he looked, another plan formed—a desperate, insane, maybe suicidal plan that was really only more evidence of Dean's negative influence on him, one that he almost discarded as soon as he thought of it. But…

_Dean…Dean can't see this…_

And just like that, the fear was gone, the determination was back, and Sam was ready for the next attack when it came a heartbeat later. Cain held the knife loose at his side, and Sam hoped, for just a moment, that maybe…

But no. As he grabbed for it, Cain dodged with a chuckle.

"Oh, you want this to come into play, then? Well, all right…"

Sam summoned every bit of courage he had left as the knife was raised, and then forced his mind to be absolutely blank as he threw his injured hand up.

Apparently, even Cain hadn't predicted a maneuver like that, because he didn't even try to halt the course of the blade as it plummeted, and next thing either of them knew the thing was buried in Sam's broken hand. Sam leapt back, yanking the blade out—and _then_ he felt the pain.

For a moment, he blacked out again, but it was okay, because his survival instincts had taken over already. His left hand wasn't nearly as strong or dexterous as his right, but he could use it to fight if the need was great—and it was perhaps greater now than it had ever been before.

But even in the haze of pain and fear and anger, Sam could think just clearly enough to know that there was no way he could hope to make any kills tonight. The most he could reasonably hope for was to get out, to get away, to come back and fight another day.

And maybe, just maybe, he could save Dean in some small way.

**We'll carry on.**

**Though you're dead and gone, believe me.**

**Your memory will carry on.**

**We'll carry on.**

**And though you're broken and defeated,**

**Your weary widow marches on.**

**On and on we carry through the fears.**

Dean had progressed from silent self-flagellation to out-and-out screaming at himself by the time he skidded to a stop in front of Brooke Fairchild's house after ten agonizing minutes of speeding as fast as he dared down the road.

He still couldn't believe what the little GPS system that he had never known to lie had told him—couldn't believe that Sam was still _here_. Had never _left_, in fact. Had been in this house the entire time Dean was searching, probably dragged down into the basement by the shifters or something and held either in silence or unconsciousness while Dean brutally interrogated the girl he was supposed to be saving right over their heads.

_Oh, God, why didn't I check?_

But seriously, who _does_ that? Who keeps their intended victim in exactly the same place they captured him? Dean couldn't possibly have suspected that. Not unless he discovered how to read the mind of the most insane creature on earth—a demon-human hybrid—which was a secret Dean Winchester _never_ wanted to find.

The thought didn't make him feel any better, especially considering what those things could be doing to Sam right now…

XXX

Well, as it turned out, the shifters weren't doing anything to Sam at the moment, because Sam wasn't _there_ at the moment. He had been, though, and recently—Dean could sense it, could feel the tension in the air. And even if he didn't trust his Sam-sense—something he had never once in his life doubted for a single second—it was nevertheless plain that _someone_ had been hard at work here, and who else _could_ it have been?

_That's my boy, Sammy_, Dean had a moment to think proudly, studying the prone forms on the floor. But then one of them began to stir, push himself in his knees, shake his head to clear it. Dean watched, gun drawn, as the shifter rolled over first the body on the left, and then the one on the right. Then he chuckled. "Little runt had more fight in him than I gave him credit for…" he muttered, removing his hands from the corpses and standing up.

Dean, meanwhile, could only stare at the bodies. Both of them lay with eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, both clearly dead but only for a couple minutes at most, if the too-fresh knife wounds in their chests were any indication at all. One was male, one female, and Dean had seen them both before.

Max Miller.

And Jessica Moore.

Dean felt something clench deep inside him as he thought of what tonight must have cost Sam. What it must have cost him to shoot first a man he'd always felt sorry for and then the love of his life, whom he'd always felt he'd already murdered. How horribly it must have hurt him.

But now the third was standing, turning around, and Dean forgot about the other two to wonder distantly how much more he and Sam could be expected to take.

He should have suspected it, truly. Should have known it the whole time. After all, the whole demonic world seemed to have a guidebook on Winchester torture—with the majority of it devoted entirely to Sam.

So, yeah, maybe he actually _had_ expected it, somewhere deep, deep down, and maybe that was why he didn't run screaming from the room. But he didn't—_couldn't_—do anything else, either. Just stood there, his gun loose in his fingers, staring.

The shapeshifter grinned at him, looking not at all put out. "Oh, hello. Are you Dean, then?"

Dean didn't answer.

"Oh, that's all right, I already know the answer, anyway. You came to save your little brother, of course." He paused and seemed a little disappointed when Dean didn't seem inclined to participate in verbal judo. "Fine, don't answer me. It's a very boring way to conduct yourself, but I suppose that's okay with creatures like you. Anyway, as you can see, he's not here. You _just_ missed him—he left not five minutes ago."

He made it sound like Sam had simply gone out for a time, rather than fighting tooth and nail for freedom and taking out two of them on his way out, and Dean might have wondered how crazy this bastard really was, were he able to think at all.

"Dean, are you going to say anything to your daddy at all? I mean, are you even wondering how I am what I am?" He smiled, and didn't wait for a reply this time. "Well, that's okay, you don't have to ask. I'll be nice this time. It's not that great a secret, anyway—all of my kind can do it. Taking the shape of the dead is hardly advantageous in most cases, since of course we can't download identities themselves, but for these circumstances…" He shrugged. "Seemed ideal."

He took a step forward, and smiled when Dean's trigger finger didn't so much as twitch.

"Your brother's reaction was a little anticlimactic, but what can you do? And yours—it's more than satisfactory." Suddenly he sighed, a little sadly. "But Dean, I'm very sorry to tell you that this conversation has to come to an end now. I should go find Sam, after all, and make sure he gets home all right."

He took another step forward, still talking smoothly.

"Don't worry, though, it probably won't hurt much. You don't seem much inclined to _make_ it hurt. Not much, anyway. Not like Sam. Now _he_ was a fighter. Killed my whole family, ya know." And suddenly, his voice lost its blandness and became colored by soft, deadly anger. "Oh, I can't wait to make little Sammy scream…"

"_You have to save him, son. Save him…or kill him."_

"_Watch out for Sammy."_

"_Take care of Sammy."_

Dean jumped as John Winchester's voice slammed into his head, and with it came weeks—months—of chained-in _feelings_. Sorrow at his loss. Exhaustion of the burden that had been thrown on his shoulders so suddenly and with so little warning. Hurt at the abandonment. And through it all, the bitter taste of fury too long contained.

This evil creature thought it had done something clever here today, something to at last unravel a Winchester, and Dean chuckled inwardly, sadly, because in reality, all it had done was seal its own fate.

He raised his gun, took aim, registered the shifter's surprise.

"Don't call him Sammy."

Then he emptied the gun into his father's heart.

**Disappointed faces of your peers.**

**Take a look at me 'cause I could not care at all.**

Sam stumbled through the storm without having any real idea of where he was going. He hardly _cared_, as long as he was getting _away_, and to that end, he pretty much just ran in a straight line in the opposite direction of Brooke's house. Well, a zig-zaggy line, actually, since he really couldn't walk in a straight line. His head throbbed, his eyes couldn't seem to focus, the fire in his chest was flaring again, his hand now seemed to be an entirely separate entity from his body…

Sam recognized the signs, too. The concussion was worse than he'd thought, and it was beginning to get the best of him.

He stumbled and almost fell once again, but continued on determinedly. He had to keep going…he'd forgotten _why_, precisely, but he couldn't stop…not yet…

But his vision was darkening, becoming enclosed by little flickers of black at the edges, and he couldn't breathe, and the ground was uneven, and it _hurt_…

And then he tripped over…something…and fell, and did not get up again.

XXX

Dean had known already that Sam wasn't in the house, of course. His hunting instincts hadn't failed _that_ badly, after all.

But it was only after he saw the blood splatters that didn't belong to any of the shifters that he realized fully what Sam's disappearance meant. The kind was alone, maybe hurt—okay, most definitely hurt, but maybe _really_ hurt—and now he was out there in this storm.

Dean barely finished thinking it before he was running out into the rain, leaving the shattered remnants of horrible memories behind.

XXX

His fear kicked itself up a notch when he found the trail, because a deaf, dumb, and blind man could have picked it up and Sam Winchester did _not_ leave those kinds of trails. He just…_didn't._

And yet, there was also a certain relief in not having to search, to look carefully to signs, to fight for every inch of ground in tracking Sam down. Instead, he could just charge through the woods, without hesitation, and as such it took him about ten minutes—rather than two hours—to find his brother.

When he did, he almost wished he hadn't.

Sam was lying on the ground, soaked and mud-splattered and with only a white T-shirt and jeans to protect him from the cold. He was on his side, facing away from Dean, curled into himself in a little protective ball. And he wasn't moving—didn't even so much as twitch when Dean yelled his name and raced forward so fast he tripped over his own feet and nearly went sprawling flat on his face.

But Sam did flinch a little when Dean touched his shoulder, gently turned him over, wrapped him up in warm, if wet, leather, and gathered him into a careful embrace, trying to rub warmth back into his cold, stiff arms. He flinched, his eyed cracked open, he groaned a little, and that was enough.

It was enough until he noticed Sam's ruined right hand.

After that, nothing was enough—nothing _would_ be enough.

Not until he fixed this.

**Do or die.**

**You'll never make me,**

**Because the world will never take my heart.**

**You can try, you'll never break me.**

**You want it all, you wanna break this heart.**

**Won't explain or say I'm sorry.**

**I'm not ashamed, I'm gonna show my scar.**

**Give a cheer for all the broken.**

**Listen here, because it's only you.**

**I'm just a man, I'm not a hero.**

**I'm just a boy who's meant to sing this song.**

**I'm just a man, I'm not a hero.**

**I—don't—care.**

Hours later, Dean approached his brother's hospital bed with unusual—almost unheard of—timidity, stopping only when his leg touched the mattress.

Sam was asleep—drug-induced, which Dean was actually grateful for, since it kept Sam from bolting awake at a moment's notice and actually enabled him to get a _real _good night's sleep. He was pretty pale—Dean had long since learned that the word "pallor" was pretty much synonymous with "hospital visit"—but hardly as white as he'd been on other visits.

That was almost enough to make Dean feel better, until he glanced at all the plaster and gauze enveloping Sam's right arm. He reached out and brushed his fingers gently over the cast, wondering again what had happened. Then again, did it even _matter_? The results had been explained all too brutally by numerous doctors all evening long, regardless.

Each and every one of the fingers on Sam's right hand had been systematically and repeatedly broken, not to mention the gaping wound that had apparently been caused by some sort of knife. It had taken hours of surgery to repair the damage, and Sam could only regain full use of his hand if he was willing to endure what would surely be a painful therapy regime.

But over and over again tonight, Dean had heard the words "he was lucky." Sam had been physically beaten to a pulp, but at least he hadn't succumbed to the hypothermia that had set in during that short time he'd been out in the storm.

Dean chuckled bitterly. _Yeah, kid's lucky, all right. Lucky enough to have been beaten and tortured by something wearing his dead father's face. He should freakin' take it to the Vegas casinos, see if he can actually get us more broke than we already are…_

Even as he thought this, Sam stirred, his forehead crinkling up, eyelids scrunched too tightly together—all telltale signs of his waking. But Dean didn't want him to wake yet—not if it would only hurt him more, inside and out.

With that in mind, he pulled a chair quietly over to the bed and sat down, at the same time reaching for Sam's arm. He squeezed confidently, firmly, reaching out to push that stupid too-long hair out of Sam's face.

He didn't need to say anything, and he knew that. Sam knew his touch and reacted to it almost instantly, falling deeper into sleep, his face now relaxed and fairly calm.

Dean kept his hand where it was, though, knowing that it was probably the only thing keeping Sam at peace.

He only wished his own nightmares would be so easy to chase away.

**We'll carry on.**

**We'll carry on.**

**Though you're dead and gone, believe me.**

**Your memory will carry on.**

**And though you're broken and defeated,**

**Your weary widow marches on.**

**We'll carry on.**

**We'll carry on.**

**We'll carry on.**

**We'll carry on.**

**We'll carry on.**

Sam's mind awoke very confused. He remembered with rather too much clarity what had happened, but what he couldn't figure out was how to fill in the blanks between the time he'd run away and now, when he was safe.

Because he did know he was safe. He hadn't opened his eyes yet, but he didn't have to. He could just _feel_ that Cain hadn't caught him, that he wasn't back at Brooke's house awaiting more torture. That Dean was with him, and so he was safe.

Sometimes, it really was that simple.

XXX

Dean had only been half-sleeping at best, and so he felt it the instant Sam began to wake up. Sighing inwardly—_damn, he was going to have to tell the kid something now—_he opened bleary eyes and pushed himself into a sitting position. His hand slid from Sam's arm, and he told himself firmly that the loss of contact felt wrong only because his body had become used to it while he slept.

Sam stared at him, brown puppy-dog eyes at their most powerful due to injury and pain and drug. He did that X-ray thing with his eyes, like he was looking past Dean's gruff, expressionless face and delving deep into his thoughts, his gaze eventually coming to rest in Dean's soul. Dean didn't know what to do to make him stop, and so he sat there and fidgeted until Sam withdrew from his mind and his eyes went back to normal.

Only they didn't go back to normal this time—not completely. He just looked very, very sad—almost heartbroken—as if Dean were the one lying in the hospital after some seriously scarring events.

Then he spoke, his voice heavy, weighted by what he saw in his brother.

"You found them, didn't you?"

Everything snapped into place in Dean's head with the words—and Dean snapped, too.

XXX

Sam really should have known not to ask—should have known that Dean would be able to instantly derive the truth from that one simple question. But the drugs must have been more affective than they'd seemed, because the words came out before he could stop them and _that_ hadn't happened since he entered law school.

But even if his mind _was_ foggy, he realized he'd done something wrong when Dean's jaw locked and he shoved himself away from the bed and onto his feet. He stood facing Sam, his eyes snapping fire and his face gone from impassive to thunderous in moments.

"So that's what you were doing out there," he said tightly. "You wanted me to chase you instead of them." His voice swelled, rose with his anger. "You ran off into a freezing storm with broken ribs and a concussion because you didn't think I could _handle_ it!"

Sam stared at him, and he still only looked sad. Not pitying—Dean would have killed him for that under _any _circumstances—just…sad. "Can you?"

And with just those two quiet words, all the fight went out of Dean. He slumped and folded into his chair again, running a hand over his face. "I don't know."

The confession, as broken and defeated as it came out, nevertheless had no power over Dean. It didn't make him angry or ashamed or anything—he just didn't _care_. In fact, he found himself _repeating_ the phrase, in the same tone.

"I…I don't know."

Sam said nothing, and as the silence spiraled, Dean felt a horrible and powerful urge to say something—_anything_—to break it.

"This one freaked me out, Sam. I mean…it _really_ freaked me out. Still does. Ya know, I got to Brooke's house, all ready to do my usual saving-you thing, and…you weren't there. And there was…blood…on the floor, and I didn't know how much of it was yours." He took a deep, shaky breath. "And all that was before I even _saw_…him."

Sam swallowed hard, his left hand automatically going to cover the cast.

"He…said all these _things_. About me, about you, about…killing you…" Dean choked. "And I didn't…I didn't do anything. I couldn't even _move_."

When it became clear that he didn't know what to say next, Sam prompted him very, very gently, seeming to sense that Dean needed to get this out there.

"What happened, Dean?"

"…I shot him." Dean finally lifted his gaze from his hands and looked Sam in the eye. "I shot Dad, Sam."

And with the words, Dean broke at last.

XXX

The Winchesters never again mentioned Dean's breakdown in the hard plastic chair next to Sam's hospital bed. They wouldn't have been Winchesters if they had. In fact, they didn't exchange words _during_ the breakdown. Sam just lay in bed with his hand on Dean's shoulder the entire time, saying nothing and betraying no emotion.

And wasn't _that_ a switch? Dean would have commented on the irony of it if he hadn't been so busy trying to keep his sobs from breaking his body in half. After all these years, they'd at last come to a point when _Dean_ was the one having the tear fest while _Sam_ watched and awkwardly tried to figure out what to do, what to say.

It was very embarrassing, actually, and Sam, being Sam, sensed that, and never mentioned it again.

Yet another thing he was gonna owe his brother in the long run.

XXX

"Dean, c'mon, man! _Please?!"_

Dean winced as the plea came again. "Sam, _for the last freakin' time,_ no."

"But I'm _fine!"_ Sam protested—then grimaced and put his good hand to his ribs, careful not to so much as twitch his right.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah, you're great."

"Dean, I don't want to _be_ here anymore! I _can't_ be here anymore!"

"It's only been two days, Sam."

"And I am _losing my mind._ You _know_ that about me! Mainly 'cause you're the same way."

"But we're not talking about me," Dean said simply. "We're talking about you, and about how I'm saying you should stay here another day or so."

Seeing that Dean was determined to stick to his guns on this one, Sam sighed inwardly and pulled out his greatest—and lowest—weapon.

"Oh…aw, man!" Dean groaned, staring at him in unfeigned horror. "Damn it, Sam, weren't you supposed to grow out of this in, like, second grade?!" He tried to look away, but his eyes seemed magnetically drawn by the power of The Eyes.

"Stop it, Sam!"

Sam didn't look away or blink an eye.

"Sam, turn 'em off!"

"Deeean…"

Dean threw up his arms. "_Fine!_ I'll go get the stupid forms!"

"Now?"

"_Yes_! Now stop with the damn face!"

Sam grinned as Dean left the room, grumbling things like, "stubborn bastard" and "stupid baby brothers" and "doesn't know what's best for him." But when Dean was out of sight, the smile faded slowly, and he slumped back against his pillow with a sigh that made his broken ribs ache again.

He raised his right arm and stared at it in irritation. Thanks to the meds they had him jacked up on at the moment, he didn't feel a whole lot from it, but he knew that would change pretty quickly once Dean got him checked out AMA, and in the meantime even thinking about how it had gotten that way was enough to make him cringe in imaginary pain.

And even after all that, after everything he'd put himself through, he'd still failed. He hadn't been able to protect Dean when the opportunity presented itself at last, and as a result Dean had seen something he never should have had to see, been forced to do something he never should have had to so much as contemplate.

It was just so…so _wrong_! Why was it always _Dean?_

And why, oh, _why_ couldn't Sam just do something _right_ for once? He never, ever got to be the strong one, the shield—Dean had always just _been_ there, watching over everyone, being stubbornly proud and tough when he didn't have to be. D what did he get for it? A useless little brother who was always getting into trouble, who could never take care of himself.

And Sam didn't know if he would ever be able to get over _that_, even if by some miracle he managed to shed all the _other_ guilts that plagued him.

And the real irony of it was, Dean never held anything against him—well, except for the whole Stanford thing, and _that_ was a whole other subject entirely. No, Dean was always content to just let everything go, whether it hurt him or not, and no matter what, he _always_ forgave.

Sam just wished it really was that easy.

XXX

"Easy…easy…" Dean murmured in a voice almost too quiet for himself to hear as he lowered Sam carefully into the passenger seat, careful not to jostle his arm.

Sam allowed the overprotective treatment and actually managed to keep his eye-rolling and grumbling to himself, though he was sorely tempted to say something when Dean first announced that he didn't think Sam should walk out of the hospital entirely under his own power. He didn't know why, but he didn't really feel like he _should_ say anything to his brother.

"Okay?" Dean asked, and Sam _did_ roll his eyes this time, unable to completely hide his irritation.

"Dean, I'm all right. I'm not going to say my hand doesn't hurt like hell, but I'm not planning to pass out on you anytime soon, so _stop hovering_."

Dean froze for a second, his hand on Sam's shoulder, and for a moment Sam wanted to retract the statement, to give one of his too-numerous apologies—until he saw that Dean was grinning.

XXX

Dean stared at his brother for a second, mind blank with surprise. He didn't know _why_ the unclouded irritation in Sam's voice shocked him so much, except that he hadn't expected to hear it again for a _really_ long time. Every time Sam had looked at him for the last couple days, he'd just looked sad. Every time he'd spoken, it had been in a guarded, brittle tone, as if he didn't want to say something wrong. He'd been careful around Dean, gentle, understanding.

And Dean hated it, because he didn't _deserve_ that kindness. Sam couldn't see it, would never so much as contemplate the idea, but his older brother was guilty of the worst sins imaginable, at least in the life of an older brother. He'd allowed Sam to be sad, to be hurt, to be afraid, allowed it to go on for over a year now. He'd been unable to think of any way to alleviate all the pain inside Sam—had been unable to help him. And now…now he had something to add to that—an anger powerful enough to cause him to shoot his own father.

Because the truth was, Dean hadn't shot a shapeshifter on that dark night three days ago. No, in the deep, secret recesses of his mind, he really had killed his own father. Killed him in anger, in hurt, in a powerful and uncontrollable rage. He had done it for no other reason than to cause John Winchester the same pain he'd caused his children.

Or so he'd thought.

But now Sam was treating him normally, was becoming annoyed by his mother-hen attitude, and Dean _knew_. He knew that no matter what he'd thought at the time—no matter what he'd _felt—_he'd done what he'd done for one real reason: his brother.

Because John Winchester was dead. As painful as it was to admit, it was the truth—John was gone, and he wasn't coming back.

But Sam…Sam was _here_. And okay, so he came with burdens and a secrets and general freakiness, but in the end, what did that even _matter_? The point was, he was with Dean and he wasn't leaving.

Which pretty much made him…

Well, _everything_.

Sam was staring at him now, and Dean realized that it was because he was smiling. The idea that Sam must be thinking he was crazy right now was enough to make the grin widen, and he clapped a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Let's ditch this hole, Sammy."

The hated nickname slipped past his lips for the first time since he'd met the shapeshifter, and it didn't hurt.

There were many _other_ things that hurt—for both of them. There was Sam's independent physical therapy to look forward to, and a whole lot of repressed emotion for the two of them to deal with, and it would be a long time before either of them could begin to leave this whole debacle behind.

But right now, when he was driving his beloved car, Metallica blasting from the speakers and Sam sitting next to him, already half-asleep…all that ceased to matter, and for just that moment, everything was…_right_.

"_You have to save him, son. Save him…or kill him."_

The words echoed in Dean's mind, as they had been almost constantly for months now.

Only this time, he had an answer for them.

_I'm gonna go with Door Number One._

**(Do or die, you'll never make me.**

**Because the world will never take my heart.**

**You can try, you'll never break me.**

**You want it all, you wanna play this part.)**

**We'll carry on.**

* * *

_Author's Note: Well…that was…LONG. I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I had the hardest time starting it, and after I finally did it just sort of…mutated, until before I knew it I'd written twenty-nine pages. So, if you like long one-shots, then this one's for you. Otherwise…well, again, I'm sorry._

_Now _please_ review! I especially need to know what you guys thought of the hospital scenes—I was kind of iffy on those. So, I'd appreciate some feedback! Thanks!_


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